Marisacat

Forage 21 October 2011

.American oystercatchers on a beach on Long Island, New York. The birds were so absorbed in their foraging that they ignored the photographer. [Mateusz Piesiak/Veolia Environnement wildlife photograph Awards]

[“L]ooking back on disappointments, I am dismayed by the Administration’s failure to understand and effectively address the current housing foreclosure crisis,” Cardoza said in his statement. “Home foreclosures are destroying communities and crushing our economy, and the Administration’s inaction is infuriating.”

It was just two sentences in a lengthy statement that also lamented superficial media coverage of Congress and the harsh tone of political discourse. But coming from a veteran member of the president’s party they were lines that were certain to echo through official Washington.

House Democratic aides and party strategists, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they were taken aback by the harshness of Cardoza’s message — he’s not known as a bomb-thrower — and couldn’t recall any recently departing member tossing such a grenade on their way out the door.

“This is beyond odd and clearly a reflection of Democrats’ frustration with this president and administration,” said one Democratic strategist who is a veteran of House races.

Cardoza’s office declined an interview request and refused to elaborate on the criticism of the administration. Spokesman Sean Trambley said he would “let [Cardoza’s] statement speak for itself.”

The congressman’s frustration with the White House is rooted in the housing crisis that has devastated California’s Central Valley region, and his unhappiness with the administration is well-known. His office regularly flooded reporters’ in-boxes with statements and letters criticizing the administration over what he argued was its lack of care and interest in addressing home foreclosures.

“It’s been a constant theme of his for the last six years,” said Mike Lynch, a Cardoza political adviser and former chief of staff to his predecessor, ex-Rep. Gary Condit. “He’s found the federal responsibility to the housing crisis to be wanting in several different ways.” . . . . .

Apparently he’s been going on about it for years now, and not leaving Shawn Donovan of HUD out of the slamming.

Stockton/Modesto/Manteca is the worst of the worst when it comes to foreclosure rates. There’s a huge development in Lathrop/Tracy by the 5/205 spur going into the Bay Area. Looks completely empty. Happened in 2000, though not nearly so bad. They expected the Bay Area to provide the commuter jobs. The reverse happened when the financial sector imploded.

ONEONTA, Ala. – Potato farmer Keith Smith saw most of his immigrant workers leave after Alabama’s tough immigration law took effect, so he hired Americans. It hasn’t worked out: They show up late, work slower than seasoned farmhands and are ready to call it a day after lunch or by midafternoon. Some quit after a single day.

In Alabama and other parts of the U.S., farmers must look beyond the nation’s borders for labor because many Americans simply don’t want the backbreaking, low-paying jobs immigrants are willing to take. Politicians who support the law say over time more unemployed Americans will fill these jobs. They insist it’s too early to consider the law a failure, yet numbers from the governor’s office show only nominal interest.

Well, fresh air and vegetation aren’t necessary for that mindset. Hell, neither is The Big J. My most recent job is proof enough of that.

Several days ago, I finally sat down and wrote a long, long detailed summation of life with those fucks and their bottomless bag of head games. I doubt they’ve really got the time to make any trouble for me with Unemployment. (I doubt they even remember my name.) But it’s good to have the back-up ready, just in case. Also, it’s good for catharsis.

(AP) MISRATA, Libya — Moammar Gadhafi’s blood-streaked body was on display in a commercial freezer at a shopping center Friday as Libyan authorities argued about what to do with his remains and questions deepened over official accounts of the longtime dictator’s death. New video emerged of his violent, chaotic last moments, showing fighters beating him as they drag him away.

Who wants a Khaddafy-cicle? Does every Nobel Peace Price winning pretzl get one?

The sovereignty of African states, eliminated altogether during the age of imperialism in the nineteenth century, mediated, controlled and modified during the twentieth, will further be circumvented during the twenty first. Vast economic interests are being carved up by such emerging powers as China and India. The focus of Western interests has also been intense, though very much a military one.

The Arab Spring, given the Libyan example, is not without its external, Western driven motor, and this is where citizens in the Middle East and parts of Africa have reason to worry. ‘Whereas the fall of Mubarak and Ben Ali directed our attention to internal social forces,’ writes Mamdani, ‘the fall of Gaddafi has brought a new equation to the forefront: the connection between internal opposition and external governments’

The family of Prince Sultan is asking all those who wish to honor him to donate their bribes to his sons.

Posted by As’ad AbuKhalil at 9:43 PM

Western reactions to the death of Prince Sultan

Just watch the respect that Western capitals will pay to one of the most corrupt men in power in the 20th century. This man, Prince Sultan, is probably the recipient of the most bribes in human history, especially if you count his sons’ bribes as well.

Posted by As’ad AbuKhalil at 9:14 PM

Let the most vulgar festival begin

And now, I will be subjected to the most crude and vulgar festival of fawning and hagiographic coverage of the death of Prince Sultan. Just watch the Saudi-financed news media in the Arab world and see if you can suppress the urge to vomit.

Posted by As’ad AbuKhalil at 9:10 PM

PRINCE SULTAN DIES

It will be fun to watch who will now become the 3rd in line (or second after Prince Nayif).

Posted by As’ad AbuKhalil at 9:06 PM

Prince Sultan dies

Prince Sultan dies. It is official. This only confirms a news item that I had reported a year ago. It seems that the body was kept in the fridge. My shovel has been ready for two years now. I promised a gift to the first person who reports to the news to me, and it was Farah.

fucking hippies. Don’t they know they’re a chaotic mob of odieferous, murdering, talentless losers who hate jooze and colored people? How dare they co-opt a perfectly good white christian song into a pagan paean communal harmonic communication? Don’t they know a protest is a bunch of humorless clowns who hate everything good and decent? (etc.)

P.S. Thanks MitM, that was a bunch of truly awesome people not just hanging, but actually manifesting!

wow. thanks for that. I saw a couple guys from “purple gang” (NYC Rainbow Kitchen family) and the beautiful young sister is Nic at Night, I think (mebbe, our kitchen is bunch of muslin rapped vegan dreads, so I don’t know that many street kids, but much love and respect I’ve had for them since those started showing up with their piercing and cigarettes (and pissing off the self important high holies-) besides I Love a puff of nicotiana now and then and I’ve been known to swig electric jungle juice in more than a few street kitchens “back door” 😉

Obama, a fan of Apple products, has an inside-the-Beltway reputation for being a human iPad — sleek, unemotional, efficient and self-contained. But that’s an illusion that vanishes when he leaves Washington. Like any performer — and Obama is his generation’s preeminent political performer — the president is deeply sensitive, even hyper-sensitive, to the emotional temperature of those around him. He can’t quite hide his disappointment when people give the cold shoulder. . . . .

I’m afraid that you might want to get that damn ID and stock up on cookies (while there’s still a few dispensaries operating) because as nauseating as that fluffing is, I believe it’s going to exocrcist levels of vomit worthy media offal-dom

Goin home? Not until the protestors trade in their signs for traveling guillotines and their sing-alongs become Molatoff cock-tail parties:

The US military has moved 150 aircraft to Iraq’s western Anbar province from a military base in Qatar, as US military officials and an Iraqi contractor have reportedly agreed to build an underground hangar complex in Anbar for US aircraft.

This comes despite a Friday announcement by US President Barack Obama who reiterated that there would be a full withdrawal from Iraq by the end of the year, as agreed to in a security pact signed with Baghdad under former US President George W. Bush.

I’m not a war nerd but I’m erudite enuff to know how important air power is but with all those crazy al aqaeda, er ayatollah,…er anarchists running about you need ground troops too,

But the fact is America’s military efforts in Iraq aren’t coming to an end. They are instead entering a new phase. On January 1, 2012, the State Department will command a hired army of about 5,500 security contractors, all to protect the largest U.S. diplomatic presence anywhere overseas.

The State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security does not have a promising record when it comes to managing its mercenaries. (…)

that’s what I call and understatement-GG

It’s a situation with the potential for diplomatic disaster. And it’s being managed by an organization with no experience running the tight command structure that makes armies cohesive and effective.

You can also expect that there will be a shadow presence by the CIA, and possibly the Joint Special Operations Command, to hunt persons affiliated with al-Qaida. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has conspicuously stated that al-Qaida still has 1,000 Iraqi adherents, which would make it the largest al-Qaida affiliate in the world.

So far, there are three big security firms with lucrative contracts to protect U.S. diplomats. Triple Canopy, a longtime State guard company, has a contract worth up to $1.53 billion to keep diplos safe as they travel throughout Iraq. Global Strategies Group will guard the consulate at Basra for up to $401 million. SOC Incorporated will protect the mega-embassy in Baghdad for up to $974 million. State has yet to award contracts to guard consulates in multiethnic flashpoint cities Mosul and Kirkuk, as well as the outpost in placid Irbil.

(…) Whether the Iraqi people will have protection from the contractors that the State Department commands is a different question. And whatever you call their operations, the Obama administration hopes that you won’t be so rude as to call it “war.”

But don’t worry, kiddies. We’re bugging out of plenty of places and leaving the hardware for whatever Iraqis want them:

With just over three months until the last U.S. troops are currently due to leave Iraq, the Department of Defense is engaged in a mad dash to give away things that cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars to buy and build.

The giveaways include enormous, elaborate military bases and vast amounts of military equipment that will be turned over to the Iraqis, mostly just to save the expense of bringing it home.

snippers

There were 505 U.S. military bases and outposts in Iraq at the height of operations, said Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq. Only 39 are still in U.S. hands — but that includes each of the largest bases, meaning the most significant handovers are yet to come.

snippers

Rather than strip those bases clean and ship everything home, Defense Department officials tell The Huffington Post that over 2.4 million pieces of equipment worth a total of at least $250 million — everything from tanks and trucks to office furniture and latrines — have been given away to the Iraqi government in the past year, with the pace of transfers expected to increase dramatically in the coming months.

THE U.S. BASES

The most colossal relics of the U.S. invasion of Iraq will be the outsize military bases the Bush administration began erecting not long after the invasion, under the never explicitly stated assumption that Iraq would become the long-term staging area for U.S. forces in the region.

snippers

Most of the $2.4 billion was spent building about a dozen huge outposts that, in addition to containing air strips and massive fortifications also have all the comforts of home. The Al-Asad Airfield in Anbar province, for example, covers 25 square miles — about the size of Boulder, Colo. — and is known as “Camp Cupcake” due to its amenities.

The 15-square-mile Joint Base Balad, as Whitney Terrell wrote earlier this year for Slate, is “home to three football-field-sized chow halls, a 25-meter swimming pool, a high dive, a football field, a softball field, two full-service gyms, a squash court, a movie theater, and the U.S. military’s largest airfield in Iraq.”

Despite the media’s elegiac obituaries for these major bases — like the prematurely named “Camp Victory”, with its palace, its lake, and its giant, killer carp — the fact is that not one major base has yet been evacuated.

And it’s not clear just what the Iraqis will do with some of those bases, once they get them.

One U.S. officer whose unit turned over a military outpost in a Baghdad neighborhood to the Iraqi Army in 2009 told the Washington Post that Iraqi soldiers looted it within hours of the U.S. departure. “When we returned to the outpost the next morning, most of the beds had already been taken, wood walls and framing had been pulled and several air-conditioning units had been removed from the walls, leaving gaping holes,” the officer told the Post. Weeks later, he added, the power generator the Americans had left behind was barely working.

One Iraqi entrepreneur indicated to NPR last year that there’s a thriving black market in U.S. items. “The Americans turn over every base to the Iraqi army and police — and they are all thieves,” he said.

true dat, but what torments me is that not only will the our continued presence (cock sucking pinkertons!) make it moot, we will continue the slaughter and demolition (can’t make’em whole while we’re still tearing’em apart), but I believe that whatever material is left behind mostly isn’t going to everyday Iraqis (like you said, does a TV replace your son? Scrap metal a daughter?) but the criminal and ideological thugs that we’ve empowered (and enrichened).

but once again, I feel like I’m preaching to convocation of wise and thoutghtful theologians… :LOL:

So.

At Thursday's debate, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren defended their Medicare for All plan. They faced criticism from several rivals, including Senator Amy Klobuchar, who described it as a "bad idea," and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who claimed the bill shows Sanders and Warren do not "trust the American people."

At the third presidential primary debate in Houston, Texas, senator and 2020 candidate Elizabeth Warren called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Warren also spoke about her stance on U.S. trade policy and how "our trade policy in America has been broken for decades."

After being questioned about the crisis in Venezuela, Senator Bernie Sanders defended his vision of democratic socialism. "I agree with what goes on in Canada and in Scandinavia: guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right. I believe that the United States should not be the only major country on Earth not to provide paid family and medical le […]

Debate moderator Jorge Ramos of Univision grilled former Vice President Joe Biden over the Obama administration's deportation record. Biden refused to answer whether he did anything to prevent Obama from deporting a record 3 million people.

A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Friday demanded internal emails, detailed financial information and other company records from top executives of Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc, Apple Inc, and Alphabet Inc's Google, widening the antitrust probe of Big Tech.

U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Friday asked a government watchdog to look into the Trump administration's decision to launch an antitrust probe into four automakers cooperating with California on tighter greenhouse gas emissions limits that Trump is trying to eliminate.

A lawyer for former FBI official Andrew McCabe pressed U.S. prosecutors on Friday to drop their politically sensitive case against him, citing reports that suggest they may be having trouble securing criminal charges.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.